Well....hello there and greetings from beautiful and sunny Thailand! I completed my 21-day foundation course in vipassana meditation at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep this morning and arrived back in Chiang Mai a few hours ago. It was an amazing experience- really incredible- and I look forward to sharing it in pieces with you over the course of the next month.

Change of plans, though....I'm not going back to Doi Suthep for my advanced course. My teacher was very surprised when he learned I would be doing the courses back to back, and recommended that I take more time off to absorb what I learned in the past few weeks. I agreed and decided I would come back another time to continue my training. My only regret is that when you start the advanced course, you get to choose whether you'd like to stop bullets like in "The Matrix" or float through trees like in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"

. The bullets thing would definitely be a good practical skill to have in Baltimore, but the tree floating sounds cool, too!....

I'll be in Chiang Mai for a week, decompressing and planning my next month of travel. I hadn't eaten dinner in three weeks, so I splurged tonight and had some chicken green curry with coconut milk AND a fresh cinnamon bun with raisins for dessert. Also haven't slept in a while (more on that later) which is why I'm going to sign off for now.

One more thing...this is the LAST update that I'm blasting out to specific people (it takes forever to do from public Internet terminals here), so if you haven't already subscribed to my travel blog and want to know when new updates and pictures have been posted, you should click "Get Email Updates" in the left column when you load up the page.

Good speaking with you You sound good but exhausted. I'm looking forward to hearing much more about your trip. Do you have enlightenmernt yet or is that for the more advanced course? Miss you and love you a lot. Mommo

Congrats! Hey Brotha,
I'm glad to hear your first course was a success. Have you tamed the monkey? I'm also curious to learn more about the matrix-like choice - are these just difference concentrations of Buddhism?

I'm sorry to hear about Diablo but Murphy has been living for over a year and a half with diabetes and his pancreas even kicked back-in so no more insulin shots. He can still lead a great life with early and proper care.

Bullet stopping Wow, what an experience! I am so curious about the not eating dinner and no sleeping - what the heck where they doing to you???? Thai torture chamber? Hope you are doing well and don't worry, Diablo is in GREAT hands! Be safe, my friend!